Highly Sensitive Porous PDMS-Based Capacitive Pressure Sensors Fabricated on Fabric Platform for Wearable Applications

Abstract

A novel porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based capacitive pressure sensor was fabricated by optimizing the dielectric layer porosity for wide-range pressure sensing applications in the sports field. The pressure sensor consists of a porous PDMS dielectric layer and two fabric-based conductive electrodes. The porous PDMS dielectric layer was fabricated by introducing nitric acid (HNO3) into a mixture of PDMS and sodium hydrogen bicarbonate (NaHCO3) to facilitate the liberation of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, which induces the creation of porous microstructures within the PDMS dielectric layer. Nine different pressure sensors (PS1, PS2,..., PS9) were fabricated in which the porosity (pore size, thickness) and dielectric constant of the PDMS dielectric layers were varied by changing the curing temperature, the mixing proportions of the HNO3/PDMS concentration, and the PDMS mixing ratio. The response of the fabricated pressure sensors was investigated for the applied pressures ranging from 0 to 1000 kPa. A relative capacitance change of ∼100, ∼323, and ∼485% was obtained by increasing the curing temperature from 110 to 140 to 170 °C, respectively. Similarly, a relative capacitance change of ∼170, ∼282, and ∼323% was obtained by increasing the HNO3/PDMS concentration from 10 to 15 to 20%, respectively. In addition, a relative capacitance change of ∼94, ∼323, and ∼460% was obtained by increasing the PDMS elastomer base/curing agent ratio from 5:1 to 10:1 to 15:1, respectively. PS9 exhibited the highest sensitivity over a wide pressure sensing range (low-pressure ranges (<50 Pa), 0.3 kPa–1; high-pressure ranges (0.2–1 MPa), 3.2 MPa–1). From the results, it was observed that the pressure sensors with dielectric layers prepared at relatively higher curing temperatures, higher HNO3 concentrations, and higher PDMS ratios resulted in increased porosity and provided the highest sensitivity. As an application demonstrator, a wearable fit cap was developed using an array of 16 pressure sensors for measuring and mapping the applied pressures on a player’s head while wearing a helmet. The pressure mapping aids in observing and understanding the proper fit of the helmet in sports applications.

Flexible capacitive pressure sensors for wearable electronics

“…A low degree of hysteresis indicates that the sensor could rapidly recover to the original state without external stress, suggesting its excellent recoverability. [32][33][34]…”

“…53 Besides, other materials such as copper mesh, 54 fabrics with flexibility (Fig. 2c) 33,55,56 or ordinary paper (Fig. 2d) 37 as well as biodegradable materials, e.g.…”

Gradient Architecture‐Enabled Capacitive Tactile Sensor with High Sensitivity and Ultrabroad Linearity Range

“…To the best of our knowledge, the capacitive tactile sensor that can preserve the high sensitivity in such an ultrabroad linearity range is first reported. [9,12,17,19,23,25,26,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] It is worthwhile to note that by improving the dielectric property of the as-designed GDA dielectric, the sensitivity of our sensor can be further enhanced whereas the ultrabroad linearity range can be maintained. As discussed above, the linear capacitance variation can be attributed to the linear dielectric behavior induced by the linear variation in contact area of the high-k GDA.…”

Soft Capacitive Pressure Sensor With Enhanced Sensitivity Assisted by ZnO NW Interlayers and Airgap

“…For example, microarrayed PDMS structure based capacitive pressure sensors show better sensitivity (0.6-2 kPa -1 ) compared to the flat PDMS (0.01-0.016 kPa -1 ) in the low-pressure region (0-2 kPa) [26,27]. Likewise, porous dielectric materials using three dimensional (3D) sacrificial templates have been achieved by mixing a sacrificial salt inside PDMS [28]. The capacitive sensor based on porous microstructures exhibited excellent sensitivity of 44.5kPa -1 for pressures less than 100Pa [29].…”